A Hero's Calling
by RuggerCSwole
Summary: As most people know, The Warden has mysteriously disappeared to find a cure for the Calling, leaving all the world and its chaos behind. What will she and Barkspawn find on their journeys through the Deep Roads? What will become of her beloved King Alistair and their daughter as they do their best to help the Inquisition? This is my first story so bear with me.
1. Chapter 1

The slow but consistent sound of water dripping from the walls and the stalactites onto the already dampened stone beneath it was soothing enough to put the Warden to sleep. Her vision grew dark as her thoughts and her heart grew heavy thinking about everyone she left behind.

A Few Months Earlier

The Warden's hands cupped the face of her fearsome Mabari, coat freshly groomed from his last set of paint and bandit blood covering it, "Who's the cutest war hound around?" The Warden cooed in her best little kid voice.

 _RRrruffff._ Barkspawn responded and then rolled on to his belly in ready anticipation for some (what he thought at least) well-deserved belly rubs. The Warden was more than happy to oblige.

"He's in. My spot." Alistair feigned annoyance and lunged for a free spot on the edge of the bed before Barkspawn could leap up and defend his companion. With Alistair on his hands and knees face to face with the Mabari in an intense stare down to decide who commands the space on the bed, Alistair began to feel uneasy, as if his victory may have come too easily.

Barkspawn began raise his hindquarters and lower his head to his front paws that were now covering Alistair's hands on the bedspread.

"This will be good," remarked the Warden with a smirk as she sat back against her pillow.

"What do yo-" before Alistair could finish his suspicion, the Mabari had him flipping over in the air and landing deftly upon the Warden in a heap, head to her chest.

Panting the dog leaps from the bed to find a space of his own, as if to say _My work here is done, you may have her for now._

Alistair moves his legs to the inside of the Warden's and proceeds to bury his face in her chest. _Dff prff mrfgh._ He spoke in muffled tones, the exhaustion showing clear through his shoulders. The Warden began to rub along his bare shoulders in attempts to release the tension.

"Tell me all about it," she mused playfully with a wry smile as she ran her fingers over his scarred and worn skin. She began to think about all the battles they have seen together, through the hordes of darkspawn, the dragons, and worst of all, the Orelsian nobles and their parties.

 _Drrf Grgh Mrrff Brref_. Alistair rolled in a quick motion so he had the back of his head propped against her breasts and was set between her legs, hands on her bare knees. "You know what I mean?" He said with a light chuckle, rubbing his thumbs over the scars on his wife's knees.

 _My Warden-Commander, my wife, my Queen, my love. Mine. After all this time, through the Blight, the battle of Mage's and Templar's, masquerade parties and the Game, and now demons and the Rift in the sky. What else can Andraste throw at us?_ Alistair thought absently as he nestled closer to his wife.

The Warden gave her husband a chaste kiss on the cheek and broke him from his reverie, "I don't know what else to do with Caileigh," she sighed, rubbing his stiff shoulders.

"You mean aside from give her up for adoption or drop her off at the Kirkwall Chantry?" Alistair asked in his jovial tone, earning a pectoral slap from his beloved.

"Hey now!" He exclaimed, flinching, "I was only kidding… About the Chantry party, that place is obviously out of the question!"

Alistair made his last remark and quickly caught the hand of his wife as she made another move to berate him for his morbid humor, and whirled around so he was straddling the Warden with both of her hands gripped in one of his own.

"Now if Barky could just stay out of our room, I may actually win," Alistair said under his breath with a smile, and stole a kiss from his lady who struggled beneath him. "Stand down Warden-Commander," he bellowed in a deepened voice, "for I have captured your beloved Queen!"

The Warden opened her mouth to speak but was abruptly cut off by Alistair's free hand flying to her lips to hush her, as he clearly had planned all this dialogue out long before this moment and needed to be sure it all goes accordingly.

In a high-pitched, yet scruffy voice, Alistair says, "Oh please, do save me, for I am without, My Love." Alistair removes his hand from his wife's mouth to drape it dramatically over his forehead, "The wondrous and heavenly King Alistair," he says in a breathy voice as he places his free hand upon his broad and clearly puffed out chest.

The Warden lied under her husband, amused and laughed at his ridiculous monologue comparing his own eyes to Holy Water of Andraste. By the time he had finished his scene, the Warden and Alistair were laughing and kissing in each other's embrace.

When the laughter died down and they lay touching noses, side-by-side in bed, Alistair asked in a quiet and defeated tone, as if he already knew the answer, "Do you have to leave?" The Warden's gaze rose from the hair sprouting along her love's jawline, to his deep protruding eyes, and back down to their hands clasped between them.

Quietly, and breathlessly, as someone who is tired of fighting, "You know I do," she closed her weary eyes and toke in a sharp breath, "No one else will, and you and Caileigh are worth staying around for." She looked back into his eyes, searching for something, at the least, acceptance.

Alistair toke a hand and brushed back his wife's blonde hair, letting it drop from her shoulders to lay behind her, and caressed her scarred cheek. "We will miss you my love." Alistair choked back tears, "Maker's breath, even with sadness in your eyes, you are beautiful." He pulled her in for a kiss, this time it was a long passionate kiss, of loss, pain, and hope. He smoothed his thumb across her cheek to catch her tears and pressed the Warden closer to him in his embrace.


	2. Vanishing Act

"Muuuuuuum!" A girlish scream echoed through the hall, Alistair and the Warden looked at each other and then up the stone staircase to their daughter, Caileigh's, room.

"Hmm, you best go see to her, my dearest," the Warden quickly claimed and abruptly turned about on her heel to head back to the reading room.

"Oh no no no!" Cried Alistair as he leapt and swooped his wife off her feet. "I do believe it was 'mum' she called, Elana," he teased, planting a chaste kiss upon Elana's nose and giving her a sly wink as he placed her in front of the stairs and gave her a subtle nudge.

With a huff, the Warden, Elana, rolled her eyes at her husband and took the stairs in stride in hopes to arrive at her daughter's door before another scream was heard.

"Mum, I'm afraid I'm horribly ill," Caileigh coughed to Elana, pulling a hand down her own face. "I can't go to lessons today," she said in a sigh throwing her arm across her head, "and I don't think you should leave, either," she quickly added peeking her brown eyes out from the crook of her arm to peer at her mother.

Elana gingerly took her daughter's arm at the elbow and brought it back down to her side, with her other hand she brushed back some stray blonde hairs that scattered across Caileigh's face. "Now, now, sweet one. You know I would never leave without saying a farewell."

The Warden leaned down and kissed her daughter's forehead letting her hand rest upon Caileigh's cheek. "I am only doing what I have to, I am leaving Barky here to watch over you and your father," Elana said in a soothing tone, bringing her head up from her daughter's to look at the Mabari curled up in the corner of the bed.

"No mum, you can't!" Caileigh breathed sitting up to look at her mother, startling Barkspawn at the edge of the bed. The Mabari leapt from the bed and rushed to place his head between the royal ladies' laps. "You will need him more than we will…" Caileigh's voice grew soft and she looked down to her folded hands in her lap.

Elana's expression became solemn; she placed a hand atop the head of her war hound and scratched absently behind his ears for a moment. _What do I tell my daughter? Am I supposed to say, Mum may not be home for awhile, she may not be home ever again. The Calling, the foul awful Calling. No one should have to endure a fate worse than death._

Just then the door burst open with an overly cheerful Alistair carrying a tray biscuits and sausages and laid it and the foot of his daughter's bed. "I overheard that someone was staying home sick today," he threw a teasing grin at his daughter who was still studying her hands intently.

"Dear maybe not now," Elana whispered turning to see her husband gone from the bed, "Alista-"

Before the Warden could finish her inquirer the king had both his daughter and wife scooped in his arms. He set Caileigh down on the back of Barkspawn and threw Elana over his shoulder laughing. He marched out of the room and down to the parlor, with Barkspawn happily and excitedly bounding behind him as Caileigh's giggles echoed through the corridors and her unruly hair was blown about her face.

In the Deep Roads

The Warden rubs her hands together in the pitch black in attempts to brush off the dried cracked mud and rubble that had formed since cleaning up her camp. Sighing, she drops her hands, palms up, to her knees and Barkspawn graciously licks them clean. The Mabari lets out a howl happily and bounces around Elana while she starts wiping off the excess slobber along the samite around her waist. Blinking about the darkness, she sheaths her dragon-maw daggers over her shoulder, into their respective holsters of her smooth faintly blue ice dragon armor Sandal had enchanted for her before leaving for Orlais.

Elana starts rubbing her eyes with the back of her still damp hands in attempts to adjust her vision to the growing darkness of the Deep Roads. The darkness around the Warden and her Mabari was suffocating, drafts from cracks in the stone and ancient corridors threatening to cave in sent chills through her armor, making Elana's hair stand on end. Elana starts to shake slightly, the bone armor clanking together is almost deafening in the eerie silence of the tunnel. She jumps when her hound leans and rubs against her legs in attempts to warm and calm her. _Hey, I'm right here._ He seems to say.

Barkspawn has now taken to sniffing along the stone beneath them for a stick from last night's fire to use as a torch. Even the embers have gone completely cold, and the smell of smoke is long since vanished from the pile, leaving the dank smell of wet clay and stone. Finding a suitable piece he snatches in his teeth and sits in front of Elana placing it in her hand.

"Good boy Barky," she quietly coos, taking her free hand to give him a rewarding scratch behind the ear to which he returns with a warm, reassuring lick along her scarred wrist. "Well, I suppose we should move on," she says under her breath in efforts to not break the alarming stillness drawn over the dark empty tunnel. Even the faint trickling drops of water have seemed to stop falling to the stone. The Warden strikes a match to light her torch and stills, regretting her decision immediately.

In front of Elana, staring back at her with white empty eyes is the grey-blue skeletal face of a darkspawn Hurlock. It heaves out a harsh raspy breath extinguishing her newly lit flame. Stinging tears rush to her eyes in response to its warm rotting mouth, Elana stumbles backwards and summersaults back to her feet, creating distance between her and the Hurlock who is now cloaked again in darkness.

 _Rrrrr._ Barkspawn growls deeply at the empty darkness before them, his low tones echo down the tunnel. He brings his black and red painted head up from the stone and turns to look at the Warden. Elana unsheathes her daggers which begin glowing red, a sign that darkspawn are near. Slowly, the Warden crouches and moves back to her hound that has resumed sniffing the ground, but the only sound the Warden and Barkspawn can hear is Elana's armor grazing the stone floor.

"I don't understand," Elana stares out down the tunnel, as far as the light from her dual-bladed daggers allow, "How could it have just disappeared so easily? How did we not even hear it approach?! Where did it go?" Elana racks her brain for possibilities, sifting through all her encounters in the Deep Roads over the years.

 _I should've listened to Alistair and agreed to find Shale and bring her with me. If only I had known where she was, I haven't seen her since she left with Bodhan to see Sandal off._ Elana thinks silently to herself as she looks around in the blackness surrounding her. _There would be more darkspawn if there were a Broodmother, please, oh Maker, please don't let my answers lie at the tentacles of a Broodmother._ Elana shutters involuntarily at the thought of seeing such a grotesque creature for a third time.

Barkspawn sniffs the Warden's daggers, _why are these still glowing if the darkspawn is gone?_ _CHEKK_ Elana clicks her cheeks, calling Barkspawn along as they move further through the tunnel.


	3. Chapter 3: Into the Deep

**The Deep Roads**

The ground under the Warden and her Mabari starts to rumble. Elana is thrown off balance and crouches low to regain her center of gravity. The walls around them start dropping stones the size of Barkspawn's head from their highest points, and the noise from the rocks and debris falling around them makes it nearly impossible for Elana to hear Barkspawn barking for her.

Elana suddenly feels a strong hard force pushing her from under her rear, propelling her forward and narrowly missing a large rune stone. Barkspawn is butting his head into the backs of the Warden's legs weaving her in and out of the rocks that are crashing down around them in the darkness. Every time a stone crashes next to Elana in a spot she once stood, her heart races faster than it did in the previous moment, which she begins to wonder if that is even possible.

Finally Barkspawn bites the fabric around the Warden's waist and yanks her down to her right onto cool dampened brick of a branching tunnel just as the entrance is sealed away by the Thaig pillars on either side, and stones that are crumbling from the cross beams of the room they were just in. They collapse onto the ground in a heap in the utter darkness as the dust starts to settle from the cave in.

Elana begins to stand, pressing her hands against the small grinds of rock along on the stone. Her armor scrapes against the ground, echoing through the smaller tunnel they now found themselves in. Through the darkness of the tunnel, there is the faint bluish glow of lyrium lining the walls and ceiling of the corridor. Jagged dark stones protrude from the walls and stab into the air and stone beneath it.

 _UGF, ergh._ Elana coughs as she starts breathing in the residual dust settling around her and Barkspawn as they regain their bearing from their quick tumble into the new tunnel. Elana straightens up and looks down along the path, as far as the glow from the lyrium allowed. Then it begins. A faint tug, the slow familiar thrum starts to churn within the Warden. She closes her eyes, trying to block it out, but the hypnotic melody makes her entire being ache for more. The call fills her head with the pulsing and unbearable silence. Elana convulses from what feels like claws being raked across her mind, her thoughts feel as though they are being torn apart and thrown throughout her body.

Barkspawn rushes under Elana just as she is about to collapse, catching her on his back to stabilize her. Meekly the Warden regains her strength and begins to stand, taking in deep slow breaths, fighting off the Calling that taunts her from within her own blood, she can still feel its pulsating harmonies within her veins. Shakily at first, then again with more determination she says, "Let's go," to Barkspawn and purses her lips to make a smooching noise to gain his attention.

Hours pass, Barkspawn and the Warden walk with only the lyrium as a companion to guide them. Growing weary, Elana considers stopping to make camp, as they walk into a larger circular portion of the tunnel. In this area there are 3 adjacent paths all appearing to branch out in different directions, hanging from the middle of the cavern a large vein of lyrium spirals down toward the floor eerily similar to a blue hand reaching for the ground.

Just then, a pulse of energy shoots through blue veins of the walls and the ground gives a gentle shake. Instinctively Elana braces herself and reaches a hand over her head and grabs the hilt of her dagger with her right hand. Slowly unsheathing the bone blade, she swings it down in front of her in a defensive position, holding it so that the blade is out in front of her almost parallel to the floor beneath her.

Barkspawn slowly backs toward the Warden letting out a low growl as he bares his teeth. A hazy red glow begins to shine from the Warden's gauntlet covered hand and the other dagger that is still sheathed. Nervously the Warden begins to look out around her in the darkness of the tunnel, trying to make out any movement amongst the shadows cast before her. She pulls her free hand through her short blonde hair, letting it fall back into place along her scarred jaw. Her eyes follow the vein of lyrium pulsating, almost like it is guiding her. Calling her, with faint throbs that reverberate through her bones.

Elana's eyes flutter briefly as she is caught in the harmonious pull of The Song. What feels like a black pitting feeling within her makes her yearn for a complement, the void within only grows as The Song's cadence satisfies her veins and pulls her toward the darkening end of the tunnel in hopes of finding her fill. In a trance-like state Elana drags her boots across the dirt and stone grinding the small rocks between the dragon's bone of her armor and the dirt on the stone beneath her. Limply her hands fall to her sides, her fingers unfurl from her dagger and it drops to the ground as lifeless as her gray-blue eyes staring blankly out in front of her.

Slowly the Warden stumbles and collapses, her armor bangs against the stone and echoes down the shaft. Barkspawn quickly circles her protectively, grabbing Elana's still-glowing dagger in his teeth and begins nudging Elana's arm with his snout. The warm breathe from his nostrils condense on the bone of her armor in the slowly cooling tunnel. Nervously, Barkspawn trots in place beside the Warden whining softly to her unresponsive form as the already faint blue light begins to dim; the pulsing lyrium slackens and darkens as if it is being drained.

 **At the Gates of Skyhold**

Alistair stood at the gate of Skyhold, holding Caileigh tightly in his arms and she shivered against the cold and nuzzled into his chest. "I can't believe their castle is bigger than ours," he whispered to his daughter's ear, brushing back her long hair, and rubbing his thumb along her soft olive cheeks.

Leliana leaped down from the foundry as soon as she read a scout's report of the King's men approaching Skyhold from the pass. She burst through the large wooden door leading into the gardens and swiftly approached Morrigan. "They're here."

Leliana turned away and began to head to the gates so she could be there as Alistair and his men arrived. Morrigan stood stoic in the gardens, uncertain of whether or not to follow or simply leave. _He can't know of Keiran's fate. That Flemeth has returned. That all here is not well, despite the progress, surely the Inquisitor would not divulge such information. Perhaps the Warden-Commander is here with them. It would do well to see such a dear friend's face._ Decidedly, she made her way to the stone stairs leading down to the courtyard and the drawbridge gates


End file.
